


Something Blue

by CassieIngaben



Category: The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: M/M, Marriage, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:00:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25114291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CassieIngaben/pseuds/CassieIngaben
Summary: Getting married in February and in such an unglamorous place was a bit weird, Doyle had admitted with a shrug, but then what?
Relationships: William Bodie/Ray Doyle
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	Something Blue

The round surface of the lake reflected the moon like an enormous silver mirror. From the tiny balcony of his hotel room Bodie scanned the moonlit expanse, senses alert and primed for the danger presented by the soft light — enough to bathe faces in bone-white visibility, and yet not enough to betray the dangerous glint of weapons. He sighed. There was no danger in the woods crowning the peaceful little lake; and the recessed balconies only smelled of damp, rotting wood. It had rained, during the evening — almost no-one had noticed, the stag party in full swing in the hotel bar — but now the night sky was very clear, stars cold and fixed as they can only be during the dead of winter. 

Getting married in February and in such an unglamorous place was a bit weird, Doyle had admitted with a shrug, but then what? Bodie slumped in the slimy plastic chair, pushing his weight backwards until he was balancing the chair on its two back legs; his feet reached out to anchor themselves to the balcony's edge, skittering precariously on the mushy, wet surface. He rocked a bit, back and forth, back and forth, trying to chase away the cold that was slowly turning his very bones into brittle, frail chalk-sticks. Human bones looked so white in the moonlight, he thought: chalk white, clean and essential. He brought the chair back to its upright position, the soft thump echoing in the silence. Suddenly he stood up and slid the French window door open, jerking it open so violently that the glass pane rattled. Damn the moonlight, damn the cold night, and damn the stupid hotel in the middle of nowhere — but such a nice place for weddings, everybody had agreed during the party. He threw himself on the bed, and still the moon was visible through the open French window, its light further softened by the sheer gauze curtain: the moving surface of the fabric writhing slowly like a sleepy ghost. Bodie turned face down on the bed, into the shadow and away from the sinister glint that seemed to pervade everything. Silver wedding was twenty-five years. He would be sixty-one. Doyle, sixty-three. It was too long to consider, it was unreal. Already the night was too long, or maybe too short, the passing of time insufferable, an obscenity. 

The knock at the door was so soft and yet so familiar, Bodie's breath stilled completely, stomach clenching. Petrified, fists convulsively gripping the rugged blanket, he waited. The knock was repeated, once; then silence returned. Bodie waited, and waited longer. More silence, then a scraping noise, metal on metal, for a few seconds. The door opened. Bodie closed his eyes against the white pillow, and kept still. The mattress sank with the weight of someone sitting heavily on the bed. The cold, wet oblongness of a bottle poked into Bodie's side: Doyle's soft, slightly raw voice touched him. 

"Ev'ryone else has gone to bed, and it's too silent to sleep. Even the bloody geese're asleep. Stup'd noisy smelly birds, hate them—"

"Go away, Doyle. You're drunk. Go to bed."

"I'm in bed, aren’t I? Or, _on_ a bed, but that's easy to fix…" 

Doyle moved in a rustle of clothes against blankets, settling laboriously next to an unmoving Bodie. He must have been out, Bodie thought, he smells of dew, and of himself, and— "Doyle. Go away. _Now_." 

"No need to get upset. No need to upset anything, eh? I told you, we can still…" Doyle's voice trailed off; a cold hand slithered under Bodie's belly, rooting around familiarly.

" What the _fuck_ are you about, Doyle?"

"Shhhh! No upset, eh? Please… My best mate, Bodie… best— "

Bodie pushed furiously, Doyle almost flying off the bed to land with a loud crash, half on the carpeted floor and half on the bed-stand. Bodie turned face up, tense, ready to pounce, but still lying on the bed. Slowly, Doyle got up, passing a hand over his nose. He tilted his face, blood glinting wet and black in the moonlight: a black smear across the face, a huge smudged comma taking up most of his nose and mouth. Slowly, Doyle's hand moved down, open-palmed and wet with blood, bone-white and black, and came to rest, feather-light and slick-warm, on Bodie's cheek. Their eyes locked, glinting; Doyle moved his hand on Bodie's face, slowly painting him in dark camouflage, rubbing blood across his lips. Bodie tasted the acrid-sweet fluid, and still did not move, except to close his eyes. 

Doyle lowered himself, coming to rest full length over Bodie's rigid frame, still stroking his face. Slowly, Doyle began to rock, a sort of crooning noise coming from the back of his throat. They were so very hard, and yet it took a long time of sighing and mumbling, of rubbing and pushing, languid fabric-filtered friction. Bodie's mouth was full of blood, lips and tongue munching Doyle's, sickening and impossible, exciting, wet all over their faces. Bodie's hands were still clenched into fists at his side, and yet he was coming silently, gulping in great mouthfuls of air, and his eyes opened on Doyle's face, completely blurred and black, back-lit from the moon, and only the glinting wetness of his eyes was there, hard and soft and desperately straining to come.

Bodie's fists came up, his arms went around Doyle's body, and he squeezed, hard, holding the man as he too came, stifling the convulsive movements. Doyle gave a final shuddering scream, then there was silence. 

"Bodie?" 

Silence. Doyle's hand came up again, explored Bodie's face, scraping lightly over the crusting mixture of blood and spit; finding long lashes spiked and gummed with drying liquids, eyelids squeezed closed and trembling slightly; finding tautness and lines around the mouth, now also closed.

"Bodie. Even if I am marrying her— "

Bodie's hand went up, suddenly clamping itself over Doyle's mouth, clawing hard on the soft flesh. The hissed words were equally hard and vicious: "Shut up! Just shut up and go away, you fucking bastard…"

After a while, Doyle stopped fighting, and slumped sideways, rolling off Bodie. He finally got up, awkward and skinny in the ghostly light, moving as if he was wading through a thick liquid. He made an abortive movement towards the still shape on the bed, a sort of half-reaching out of the hand, then he shrugged, turned and went away.

* * *

Dawn was barely staining the bloodlessly black and white sky, and the lake was now just a pool of dirty-grey water. The crunching of gravel was loud in the stillness. Bodie looked beyond the parking lot, towards the hotel windows, then got inside his car and drove away. In the hotel lobby, a puzzled clerk looked at the neatly folded bundle the groom's best man had left on the desk before checking out. A morning suit, and on top of it, two wedding rings. 

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally published in the zines Writetime 2001 and Roses and Lavender 6. It also circulated with the title "In Darkness, and Amid the Many Shapes." I'm now posting it to the AO3 as it is.


End file.
